First Edition: Feb. 19, 2021

KHN: Medicare Cuts Payment To 774 Hospitals Over Patient Complications
The federal government has penalized 774 hospitals for having the highest rates of patient infections or other potentially avoidable medical complications. Those hospitals, which include some of the nation’s marquee medical centers, will lose 1% of their Medicare payments over 12 months. The penalties, based on patients who stayed in the hospitals anytime between mid-2017 and 2019, before the pandemic, are not related to covid-19. They were levied under a program created by the Affordable Care Act that uses the threat of losing Medicare money to motivate hospitals to protect patients from harm. (Rau, 2/19)

KHN: To Vaccinate Veterans, Health Care Workers Must Cross Mountains, Plains And Tundra
A Learjet 31 took off before daybreak from Helena Regional Airport in Montana, carrying six Veterans Affairs medical providers and 250 doses of historic cargo cradled in a plug-in cooler designed to minimize breakage. Even in a state where 80-mph speed limits are normal, ground transportation across long distances is risky for the Moderna mRNA-1273 vaccine, which must be used within 12 hours of thawing. (Kime, 2/19)

KHN: Spurred By Pandemic, Little Shell Tribe Fast-Tracks Its Health Service Debut 
Linda Watson draped a sweater with the words “Little Shell Chippewa Tribe” over her as she received the newly recognized tribal nation’s first dose of covid-19 vaccine. “I wanted to show my pride in being a Little Shell member,” Watson, 72, said. “The Little Shell are doing very good things for the people.” (Houghton, 2/19)

KHN: Companies Pan For Marketing Gold In Vaccines
For a decade, Jennifer Crow has taken care of her elderly parents, who have multiple sclerosis. After her father had a stroke in December, the family got serious in its conversations with a retirement community — and learned that one service it offered was covid-19 vaccination. “They mentioned it like it was an amenity, like ‘We have a swimming pool and a vaccination program,’” said Crow, a librarian in southern Maryland. “It was definitely appealing to me.” Vaccines, she felt, would help ease her concerns about whether a congregate living situation would be safe for her parents, and for her to visit them; she has lupus, an autoimmune condition. (Kwon, 2/19)

KHN: Journalists Field Questions On Covid Coverage 
KHN Montana correspondent Katheryn Houghton discussed Thursday on Newsy how covid’s impact on disabled group housing isn’t tracked. ... California Healthline senior correspondent Anna Maria Barry-Jester shared updates on California’s vaccine rollout on KALW’s “Your Call” on Thursday. (2/19)

KHN: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: Open Enrollment, One More Time 
An estimated 9 million Americans eligible for free or reduced premium health insurance under the Affordable Care Act have a second chance to sign up for 2021 coverage, since the Biden administration reopened enrollment on healthcare.gov and states that run their own marketplaces followed suit. Meanwhile, Biden officials took the first steps to revoke the permission that states got from the Trump administration to require many adults on Medicaid to work or perform community service in exchange for their health coverage. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a case on the work requirements at the end of March. (2/18)

New York Post: Single Pfizer, Moderna Vaccine Dose Nearly As Effective As Two
Single doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are more than 92 percent effective in preventing COVID-19 illness after two weeks, Canadian researchers are now saying. The FDA’s own data show that a single shot of the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine is 92.6 percent effective after two weeks, and a single Moderna jab is 92.1 percent effective, the researchers note in the New England Journal of Medicine. (Italiano, 2/18)

CIDRAP: Analysis Suggests High Efficacy For Single Dose Of Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine
An analysis by Canadian researchers suggests that a single dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is highly efficacious, according to a letter published yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). Results from the phase 3 trial of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, published in NEJM on Dec 31, 2020, suggested the efficacy after the first dose of the two-dose vaccine was 52.4%, based on data collected during the first 2 weeks after the first shot to before the second shot. The overall efficacy after two doses was 94.8%. (2/18)

The Wall Street Journal: Pfizer Vaccine Is Highly Effective After One Dose and Can Be Stored in Normal Freezers, Data Shows
A single shot of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE is 85% effective in preventing symptomatic disease 15 to 28 days after being administered, an Israeli study found—news that could help guide policy makers setting vaccine priorities world-wide. ... The Israeli study, conducted by the government-owned Sheba Medical Center and released Friday, also found a 75% reduction in all Covid-19 infections, symptomatic or asymptomatic, after the first shot. The peer-reviewed study was published in the British medical journal Lancet as a correspondence, meaning it represents the views of the authors and not the journal. (Lieber, 2/19)

Bloomberg: Single Pfizer Shot Cut 85% Of Cases In Israel Health Workers
A single dose of the vaccine from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE reduced Covid-19 infections by 85% in a study in Israel, bolstering the U.K.’s decision to speed immunizations by delaying a second shot. Among health-care workers who got the vaccine, symptomatic infections were reduced by that percentage in the 15 to 28 days after the first dose, compared with those who didn’t get a shot, according to the report in The Lancet medical journal. While most workers received a second dose on schedule -- about three weeks after the first -- the booster would only have just started to kick in by the end of the study, so it was essentially looking at the effects of one dose, researchers said Thursday. (Levingston, Langreth and Lauerman, 2/18)

The Hill: Researchers Call For Second Pfizer Vaccine Dose To Be Delayed 
A pair of researchers in a letter published by the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday argued that the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine could be delayed, despite previous opposition to such a move from health authorities. (Castronuovo, 2/18)

NPR: Hospitals In Austin Are Running Out Of Water, Forcing Some To Transfer Patients
Local hospitals are being affected by widespread water issues in the Austin area, following severe weather this week. St. David's South Austin Medical Center said it lost water pressure from the city Wednesday, creating a series of problems. "Water feeds the facility's boiler, so as a result, it is also losing heat," David Huffstutler, CEO of St. David's HealthCare, said in a statement. Huffstutler said the hospital is working with city officials to fix the situation. In the meantime, hospital and city officials are finding transportation to get patients "who are medically able to be discharged home safely." (Lopez, 2/18)

Modern Healthcare: Texas Home Care Workers Face Challenges To Provide Care During Winter Storm
When it comes to natural disasters, shutting down healthcare simply isn't an option for most providers. But Texas' recent winter weather and power outages posed particular challenges for home care providers as many roads were impassable and clients were trapped at home. In the greater Austin area, Deborah Garcia runs a small nonmedical home care agency, Texas Home Care Partners. Some of the company's caregivers have stayed at clients' homes since Monday, taking shifts with family members to care for clients. In other cases, families have taken over caregiving until the roads clear. "In cases where the client absolutely can't be alone and doesn't have family there, we have to stay," Garcia said. (Christ, 2/18)

The Wall Street Journal: Texas Cities Under Boil-Water Orders 
More than 14 million people in Texas are without safe drinking water, as the fallout of a severe winter storm exacts a historic toll. Cities including Austin, Houston and San Antonio are under boil-water notices until Monday. Some residents are bringing in shovelfuls of snow to flush their toilets. (Findell and Thomas, 2/19)

The New York Times: Texas Water Crisis: Frozen Pipes, Cracked Wells And Offline Treatment Plants 
Power began to flicker back on across much of Texas on Thursday, but millions across the state confronted another dire crisis: a shortage of drinkable water as pipes cracked, wells froze and water treatment plants were knocked offline. The problems were especially acute at hospitals. One, in Austin, was forced to move some of its most critically ill patients to another building when its faucets ran nearly dry. Another in Houston had to haul in water on trucks to flush toilets. (Healy, Fausset and Dobbins, 2/18)

The Hill: 1 Million Without Clean Drinking Water In Louisiana 
Thousands are without power and roughly 1 million Louisiana residents are without clean drinking water after crippling winter storms struck the southern and central U.S. this week. Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) said Thursday at a press conference that water issues were affecting residents across the state, while the power outages remained mostly confined to the Baton Rouge and North Shore areas. (Bowden, 2/18)

Bloomberg: Winter Storms Target Homeless In Texas And Oregon
On Sunday afternoon, people started lining up to get into Houston’s George R. Brown Convention Center — a shelter of last resort for some 800 people — six hours before the facility opened. Temperatures plunged over the weekend in Texas, bringing snow, ice, and widespread power outages to several million households across the state. But the most vulnerable Texans were those who had no homes. In Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and other cities, social workers and volunteers fanned out to search for unhoused people and usher them into emergency warming centers; when community shelters reached capacity, churches and nonprofits opened their doors to those seeking refuge. Not all found shelter: On Monday, a Houston man was found dead in a van after he declined to be taken to a warming center; another man was found dead on a highway median. (Capps and Bliss, 2/18)

NPR: 'A Disaster Within A Disaster': Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Cases Are Surging In Texas
Texas is seeing a surge in carbon monoxide poisonings this week, as plunging temperatures and persistent power outages send residents searching for warmth increasingly from dangerous sources. A total of 450 carbon monoxide-related calls statewide have been made to the Texas Poison Center Network since Feb. 11, a Texas Department of State Health Services spokesperson told NPR on Thursday night. She said some of those calls were made en route to an emergency room or urgent care center. (Treisman, 2/18)

NPR: Biden To Announce $4 Billion For Global COVID-19 Vaccine Effort
President Biden is set on Friday to announce a total of $4 billion in contributions to COVAX, the vaccine alliance trying to distribute COVID-19 vaccines to 92 low- and middle-income countries, a senior administration official told reporters. Biden will make the announcement during a virtual meeting of G-7 leaders about the pandemic. (Wise, 2/18)

The Washington Post: White House Announces $4 Billion In Funding For Covax, The Global Vaccine Effort That Trump Spurned
The White House is throwing its support behind a global push to distribute coronavirus vaccines equitably, pledging $4 billion to a multilateral effort the Trump administration spurned. At a Group of Seven meeting of leaders of the world’s largest economies Friday, President Biden will announce an initial $2 billion in funding for Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, to be used by the Covax Facility, senior administration officials said in a briefing. (Rauhala, Cunningham and Taylor, 2/18)

AP: Biden Rolling Out Plan For $4 Billion Global Vaccine Effort
Joe Biden will use his first big presidential moment on the global stage at Friday’s Group of Seven meeting of world leaders to announce that the U.S. will soon begin releasing $4 billion for an international effort to bolster the purchase and distribution of coronavirus vaccine to poor nations, White House officials said. Biden will also encourage G-7 partners to make good on their pledges to COVAX, an initiative by the World Health Organization to improve access to vaccines, according to a senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to preview Biden’s announcement. (Madhani, 2/18)

Politico: U.S. Won’t Share Vaccine Before All Americans Receive Shots, Officials Say 
The Biden administration won’t donate to poor countries any of the coronavirus vaccine doses the U.S. has purchased before most Americans are vaccinated, a senior administration official told reporters Thursday. The comments come one day before Biden will join the G7 virtual meeting, where leaders of major industrialized nations are set to address anxiety over a global vaccine rollout that’s left behind poor countries. (Paun, 2/18)

Stateline: COVID-19 Relief Package Includes Expansion Of Health Care Coverage
Democrats in Congress plan to use the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill to advance President Joe Biden’s campaign promises to make affordable health care available to more Americans, reversing the Trump-era decline in the number of people with health insurance. They propose to increase federal subsidies to help people buy private health insurance plans and to make those subsidies available to more people. They want to offer new incentives to entice the 12 states that have not yet expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act to do so. And they want the federal government to temporarily pick up health insurance costs for those who have lost their jobs and their employer-sponsored coverage during the pandemic. (Ollove, 2/18)

The New York Times: Kamala Harris: Women Leaving Work Force During Pandemic Is A 'National Emergency' 
Vice President Kamala Harris said on Thursday that the 2.5 million women who have left the work force since the beginning of the pandemic constituted a “national emergency” that could be addressed by the Biden administration’s coronavirus relief plan. That number, according to Labor Department data, compares with 1.8 million men who have left the work force. For many women, the demands of child care, coupled with layoffs and furloughs in an economy hit hard by the pandemic, has forced them out of the labor market. (Rogers, 2/18)

Politico: Biden Privately Tells Governors: Minimum Wage Hike Likely Isn’t Happening 
When Joe Biden met with a group of mayors and governors last week he bluntly told them to get ready for a legislative defeat: his proposed minimum wage hike was unlikely to happen, he said, at least in the near term. “I really want this in there but it just doesn't look like we can do it because of reconciliation,” Biden told the group, according to a person in the room. “I’m not going to give up. But right now, we have to prepare for this not making it.” (Korecki and Cadelago, 2/18)

The Hill: Conservative Groups Seek To Bolster Opposition To Biden's HHS Pick 
Conservative groups have launched advertising and grassroots campaigns in a bid to sink the nomination of Xavier Becerra for secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), portraying him as too liberal and inexperienced for the job. Heritage Action for America is backing a $600,000 ad campaign targeting Becerra, while Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion conservative group, is seeking to drum up grassroots support to pressure lawmakers to oppose Becerra's confirmation. (Samuels, 2/18)

Stat: Federal Judge Nixes Hospitals’ Attempt To Force HHS 340B Crackdown
A federal judge ruled Thursday that it’s too early for hospitals to challenge the federal government’s lack of action against drug makers in the 340B drug discount program. The decision is the latest installment in an escalating feud between hospitals and drug makers over substantial drug discounts providers get for treating low-income patients. (Cohrs, 2/18)

Bloomberg: Covid Vaccine For Pregnancy Trials To Begin As Pfizer-BioNTech Start Tests
Covid vaccine developers are beginning trials in pregnant women, looking to provide reassurance that the shots are safe for expectant mothers. Pfizer Inc. and German partner BioNTech SE dosed the first patients in a trial of their messenger RNA vaccine in 4,000 women in the latter stages of pregnancy, the companies said on Thursday. The partners will run a mid-stage study for 350 volunteers between 27 and 34 weeks gestation to confirm safety, before moving into advanced trials for women between 24 and 34 weeks pregnant. (Ring and Kresge, 2/18)

The Hill: Fauci: Vaccine For COVID-19 Variant 'Likely Will Take Several Months' 
Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, on Thursday said that a vaccine for a variant strain of the coronavirus believed to have originated in South Africa will likely take “several months.” (Budryk, 2/18)

The Washington Post: Pfizer And Moderna Vaccine Manufacturing Is Stressing A Supply System That Previously Served A Scientific Niche 
Acuitas Therapeutics, a tiny biotechnology firm in Vancouver, B.C., has just 30 employees and leases its labs from the University of British Columbia. The company doesn’t even have a sign on its building. Until last year, it outsourced production of only small volumes of lipid nanoparticles, fat droplets used to deliver RNA into cells, for research and a single approved treatment for a rare disease. But now, one of Acuitas’s discoveries has become a precious commodity. A proprietary molecule called an ionizable cationic lipid is a crucial piece of the mRNA vaccine made by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, and it is in urgent demand for production of billions of vaccine doses worldwide. (Rowland, 2/18)

The Washington Post: D.C. Revises Coronavirus Vaccine Rules, Will Open To Young People With Health Problems On March 1
The District announced Thursday that it will offer coronavirus vaccines to people 16 or older with serious health problems, beginning March 1. Residents who have conditions such as cancer, diabetes or kidney or liver disease can seek a vaccine through their doctor or through the city’s public registration system. Doses remain in short supply, and this new group of patients — representing more than a quarter of adults in the city — will compete for appointments with seniors and an increasingly large pool of eligible essential workers. (Zauzmer, 2/18)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. Postpones COVID-19 Vaccines Amid Winter Weather Delays
Thousands of COVID-19 vaccine appointments scheduled Friday at sites run by the city of Los Angeles will have to be postponed after shipments of doses were delayed by the severe winter weather that’s wreaking havoc across the country. About 12,500 people will have their appointments delayed, and those affected should be notified by text, email or phone, according to a city statement. (Money, Shalby and Lu, 2/18)

Boston Globe: Vaccine Shipments To Mass. Delayed; Baker Ponders Sending National Guard South To Fetch Supplies
As severe cold, snow, and ice grip much of the country, federal officials have informed the Baker administration that this week’s shipment of COVID-19 vaccine doses earmarked for Massachusetts has been delayed and won’t arrive until Monday, state officials said Thursday. Governor Charlie Baker also said that he’d consider activating the National Guard to travel to the storm-battered South to pick up shipments meant for Massachusetts. In a statement, a spokesperson for the COVID-19 Command Center said Baker had reached out to the US government to “offer any assistance” the state could provide. The administration is also “imploring the federal government to rectify the delay immediately.” (Andersen and Saric, 2/18)

Boston Globe: Mass. Public Health Officials Apologize For Vaccine Website Issues, Say 60,000 Appointments Were Still Booked
Massachusetts public health officials apologized Thursday night after the state’s COVID-19 vaccination appointment website crashed earlier in the day, as a surge of newly eligible residents age 65 and over tried to book appointments. “The state’s website to find and book vaccine appointments experienced delays and technical difficulties and the administration sincerely apologizes for the frustration and inconvenience our residents experienced over the course of the day,” the state’s COVID-19 Command Center said in a statement. (Bowker, 2/18)

USA Today: CVS To Help Underserved Americans Get COVID Vaccine Appointments
CVS Health plans to contact Americans living in underserved communities to help them schedule COVID-19 vaccine appointments amid signs that white people are getting the free vaccine at higher rates than Black Americans. The drugstore chain said Friday that it will call, email and text-message people living in what the federal government has deemed socially vulnerable areas to provide assistance and education in the vaccine process. The move also comes as reports circulate widely that Americans are struggling to navigate various scheduling systems, website crashes and a sluggish rollout of the two vaccines approved so far. (Bomey, 2/19)

CNN: Two Floridians Attempted To Get Second Doses Of The Covid-19 Vaccine By Dressing As Elderly Women 
Two women were caught trying to get second doses of the Covid-19 vaccine by dressing up as "grannies," the Director of the Florida Department of Health in Orange County said Thursday. The women came to the vaccination site wearing bonnets, gloves, and glasses in an attempt to receive their vaccines, Dr. Raul Pino said during a press conference. According to the sheriff's office, the women were 44 and 34. (Holcombe and Lynch, 2/19)

AP: Experts Warn Against COVID-19 Variants As States Reopen
As states lift mask rules and ease restrictions on restaurants and other businesses because of falling case numbers, public health officials say authorities are overlooking potentially more dangerous COVID-19 variants that are quietly spreading through the U.S. Scientists widely agree that the U.S. simply doesn’t have enough of a handle on the variants to roll back public health measures and is at risk of fumbling yet another phase of the pandemic after letting the virus rage through the country over the last year and kill nearly 500,000 people. (Renault, 2/18)

CNN: A Drop In Covid-19 Cases Can Be Deceptive, Official Warns. Here's How To Stay Ahead Of A Variant-Driven Surge 
Although the rise of Covid-19 variants in the United States could spell trouble, pharmaceutical companies and scientists are confident vaccines will evolve with them, senior White House adviser Andy Slavitt told CNN. "I spoke to all the pharmaceutical companies and scientists, and they all say the same thing: Even if these vaccines diminish a little bit, they will be able to continually update them," Slavitt, who is responsible for the Covid response, told CNN's Chris Cuomo on Thursday. (Holcombe, 2/19)

Fox News: CDC Director Worries Over ‘Pandemic Fatigue’ Come Spring: ‘This Could Go Bad So Fast’
Despite encouraging national trends in coronavirus-related hospitalizations and cases, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) worries that "pandemic fatigue" come spring could significantly hamper the country’s trajectory toward vaccination-induced herd immunity. The comments from Dr. Rochelle Walensky also come as additional states continue to detect highly transmissible coronavirus variants first identified in the United Kingdom (B.1.1.7) and South Africa (B.1.351). A separate variant first found in Brazil (P.1) has also been identified in two states. CDC models have projected that the B.1.1.7 strain could become dominant in the U.S. by March. (Rivas, 2/18)

The Hill: LGBT People Of Color Two Times More Likely Than Straight, White People To Get COVID-19: Study 
LGBT people of color are twice as likely to contract the coronavirus as their heterosexual, white counterparts, according to a study from UCLA Williams Institute. The study assessed the impact of the fall 2020 surge of COVID-19 in the United States, using data collected from 12,000 adult participants between Aug. 21, 2020, and Dec. 21, 2020. The study's "main finding" is that "that the impact of the pandemic on LGBT communities cannot be fully understood without considering race and ethnicity as well as sexual orientation and gender identity." (Vella, 2/18)

Politico: 'They Want Their Babysitters Back': California School Tensions Boil Over
Residents in one Bay Area community are demanding that several school board members resign after the officials were captured on video disparaging parents in frank and profane ways as tensions mount over prolonged campus closures. “It’s really unfortunate that they want to pick on us because they want their babysitters back,” Oakley Union Elementary School Board President Lisa Brizendine said in a recording of a board meeting posted Wednesday on YouTube. Brizendine and other trustees of the small district about 50 miles east of San Francisco are shown lamenting parent frustrations throughout the eight-minute clip, apparently not realizing until too late that their discussion was airing live. (Mays, 2/18)

CIDRAP: Study Highlights Heart Damage 1 Month After Severe COVID-19
More than half of patients with severe COVID-19 and elevated levels of a key marker of heart muscle damage after hospital release showed signs of damage to the heart a month later, a study today in the European Heart Journal finds. Led by researchers from University College London, the study involved cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of 148 COVID-19 patients who had elevated troponin levels, indicating heart damage, and who had required ventilatory support before being released from one of six London hospitals at least a month before. One in three had required mechanical ventilation. (2/18)

CIDRAP: High Mortality Found In Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients With Diabetes
Updated results from a study of hospitalized COVID-19 patients with diabetes shows 1 in 5 died within 28 days of hospitalization, French researchers reported yesterday in Diabetologia. The updated results from the CORONADO (Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and Diabetes Outcomes) study, which evaluated outcomes in diabetic French patients hospitalized for COVID-19 from Mar 10 through Apr 10, 2020, show that among 2,796 patients, 577 (20.6%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 19.2% to 22.2%) died within 28 days of hospitalization and 1,404 (50.2%; 95% CI, 48.3% to 52.1%) were discharged from the hospital. Results presented in May 2020 showed that 10% of patients who had diabetes and COVID-19 died within 7 days of hospitalization. (2/18)

The New York Times: Mental Health Providers Struggle To Meet Pandemic Demand 
After Jessica W. was laid off from her job as an executive assistant in November, she began backsliding into the eating disorder that she thought she had overcome. “I started to not want to eat again,” Jessica, 33, said. “Those thoughts and behaviors — they’re just debilitating and they drain you. It becomes a constant battle with yourself.” Jessica, whose last name has been withheld to protect her privacy as she searches for a new job, was also struggling with anxiety and depression. So she went online and started searching for mental health providers in Connecticut, where she lives. One of the therapists she called wasn’t accepting new patients. Two of them told Jessica that they didn’t have the right skill sets to help her. Others simply didn’t respond. (Caron, 2/17)

Modern Healthcare: Five Chronic Conditions Cost Employers $2.5 Billion Over Two Years, Study Shows
Companies spent $2.5 billion to treat employees' asthma, diabetes, hypertension, mental health and substance abuse and back disorders over the course of two years, according to a new study. UnitedHealthcare reviewed all claims issued by the Health Action Council's 57 nationwide employer members—which are responsible for coverage of 281,000 individuals—to find that more than 60% of workers struggle with at least one of these chronic conditions, making them the top cost drivers in employer healthcare. By studying which populations are most impacted by which diseases, Craig Kurtzweil, vice president of UnitedHealthcare's Center for Advanced Analytics, said he aims to help employers and payers lower their overall health spend by structuring targeted benefits packages to meet the needs of these workers. (Tepper, 2/18)

The Wall Street Journal: Ivy League Cancels Spring Sports Season Over Covid-19 
The Ivy League Council of Presidents announced Thursday that it would not attempt to stage spring sports in 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic, making it the only conference in the NCAA’s Division I that remains completely on the sidelines for the fourth consecutive season. “These decisions are grounded in public health best practices and informed by the pandemic related policies currently in place at member institutions,” a council statement said, adding that the presidents had decided that having sports jeopardized the rest of their universities’ activities. (Higgins and Radnofsky, 2/18)

The New York Times: Are Some Foods Addictive? 
Five years ago, a group of nutrition scientists studied what Americans eat and reached a striking conclusion: More than half of all the calories that the average American consumes comes from ultra-processed foods, which they defined as “industrial formulations” that combine large amounts of sugar, salt, oils, fats and other additives. Highly processed foods continue to dominate the American diet, despite being linked to obesity, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and other health problems. They are cheap and convenient, and engineered to taste good. They are aggressively marketed by the food industry. But a growing number of scientists say another reason these foods are so heavily consumed is that for many people they are not just tempting but addictive, a notion that has sparked controversy among researchers. (O'Connor, 2/18)

Politico: Former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole Announces Stage 4 Lung Cancer Diagnosis 
Former Kansas senator and Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole announced on Thursday that he has been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. "My first treatment will begin on Monday. While I certainly have some hurdles ahead, I also know that I join millions of Americans who face significant health challenges of their own," the 97-year-old Dole said in a statement. (Kambhampaty, 2/18)

Reuters: South Carolina Passes Abortion Ban, Planned Parenthood Sues
South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster on Thursday signed into law a ban on almost all abortions in the state and the women’s health group Planned Parenthood followed with a lawsuit, arguing the measure was unconstitutional. As one of the most restrictive abortion bans, the so-called “fetal heartbeat” law bans abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, often at six weeks and before a woman realizes she is pregnant. (McKay, 2/18)

Cincinnati Enquirer: Ohio's 'Heartbeat Bill' Never Took Effect; 1 In 10 Ohio Women Thought Abortion Was Illegal Anyway
Ohio's "heartbeat bill," one of the nation's most restrictive abortion bans, never took effect. But 1 in 10 Ohio women thought abortion was illegal in the state anyway, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. While most Ohio women, about 64%, understood abortions are legal in Ohio, another 26.2% weren't sure and 9.8% incorrectly believed all abortions were illegal in the state, according to an eight-month review of the Ohio Survey of Women led by Ohio State University professor of epidemiology Maria Gallo. (Balmert, 2/18)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: Louisiana Saw Nation's Steepest Spike In Drug-Overdose Deaths Between 2019 And 2020
The number of drug-overdose deaths in Louisiana rose more rapidly than any other state in the U.S. during the 12 months that ended last July, a period that included the first months of the coronavirus pandemic, according to preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control. About 1,720 Louisianans died from overdoses during that period, which saw what the CDC estimates to be a record 86,000 overdose deaths. Louisiana’s total is 53% more than the number that died during the same time period the year before, a spike twice as steep as the national average. (Adelson and DeRobertis, 2/19)

AP: Kentucky Relaxing COVID Rules At Some Long-Term Care Centers
Kentucky is relaxing coronavirus-related restrictions at some of its long-term care facilities. Indoor visitation will resume at non-Medicare-certified facilities that have been through the COVID-19 vaccination process, Gov. Andy Beshear said. Group activities, communal dining and visitations among vaccinated residents will resume, he said. Included in the updated protocols are assisted living facilities, personal care homes, intermediate care facilities for people with intellectual disabilities and independent living centers, Beshear said. (2/19)

Philadelphia Inquirer: The SPOT Period In Philadelphia Offers Free Menstrual Products To Those Experiencing Period Poverty
After years of running their nonprofit — No More Secrets: Mind Body Spirit, Inc. — out of Medley’s therapy office and the trunk of her car, on Saturday McGlone and Medley will open The SPOT Period in Germantown. It is believed to be the nation’s first menstrual hub. Entirely funded through community donations, The SPOT (which stands for Safety Programming for Optimal Transformation) offers an array of services including free menstrual and hygiene products, educational resources and seminars, access to clean water and toilets, a computer room, first period kits, and a Breonna Taylor safe room for “marginalized women to escape the dangers of the world.” (Farr, 2/19)

The Washington Post: France Considers Only One Covid Vaccine Dose For People Previously Infected 
France is weighing whether to give people previously infected with the coronavirus only one vaccine dose instead of two, a practice that if enacted here and followed by other countries could free up tens of millions of doses. “It’s likely that we’ll see similar moves elsewhere, given that we’re facing a shortage of vaccine doses,” said Tobias Kurth, the director of the Institute of Public Health at Berlin’s Charité hospital. (Noack, 2/18)

The Wall Street Journal: In Hunt For Covid-19 Origin, WHO Team Focuses On Two Animal Types In China 
World Health Organization investigators are honing their search for animals that could have spread the new coronavirus to humans, identifying two—ferret badgers and rabbits—that can carry the virus and were sold at a Chinese market where many early cases emerged. Members of a WHO team probing the pandemic’s origins say further investigation is needed into suppliers of those and other animals at the market, some of which came from a region of China near its Southeast Asian borders where the closest known relatives of the virus have been found in bats. (McKay, Page and Hinshaw, 2/18)

The Hill: WHO Deploys Team To Battle Ebola Outbreaks 
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced Thursday it is sending a team of experts to Guinea and Congo to battle Ebola outbreaks there. Health authorities in Guinea declared an Ebola outbreak on Sunday after identifying three cases, the first outbreak there since the virus ravaged the country in 2016. There have also been four confirmed Ebola cases in Congo. (Axelrod, 2/18)

NPR: New Zealand Will Offer Free Sanitary Products At Schools To Fight Period Poverty
All schools in New Zealand will offer free sanitary products to students starting in June, officials said Thursday. The initiative, which aims to combat period poverty, expands on a pilot program that launched last year. In their announcement, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Associate Education Minister Jan Tinetti said the program is open to all primary, intermediate, secondary and kura, or Maori-language immersion schools. Arden said that providing free period products at schools is one way for the government to help address poverty, increase school attendance and support students' well-being. (Treisman, 2/18)

AP: China Considers New Actions To Lift Flagging Birthrate
China is considering additional measures to increase its flagging birthrate, more than four years after ending its controversial one-child policy. For decades, China enforced strict controls on additional births in the name of preserving scarce resources for its burgeoning economy. But its plunging birthrate is now seen as a major threat to economic progress and social stability. On Thursday, the National Health Commission issued a statement saying it will conduct research to “further stimulate birth potential.” (2/19)